The Last Songbird
by Noble Artemis
Summary: It was simple. He had saved her from being slaughtered with the others. He had brought her to safety. By all rights, the little songbird should have been his...except for the general that wanted her more. Dark Erik.
1. Scene I

**Disclaimer: All credit and rights go to Gaston Leroux, the author and rightful owner of these characters. I own nothing. **

**Please read the lengthy author's note at the bottom of the chapter. It will help you understand the story much better.**

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><p><strong>Scene I<strong>

_**Christine**_

They came in the night.

My father heard the screaming before I did, and ran out to investigate, unaware of the danger that was closing in on us. By the time the scent of smoke and the sounds of pounding feet roused me from my sleep, I was alone. The distant din grew abruptly deafening, and the glow of fire colored the edges of the doorway. Panic seized me in an instant. I leapt up from my mat, feet bare, and threw aside the woolen quilt that hung down over the doorway.

The scene exploded before my eyes with such violence that I froze in place, chills rushing up and down my arms. It was indescribable. The horror was a blanket over my mind, and I was struck to the very bone. People running, screaming, wailing, the sounds lost in the clatter of hooves. Big, dark shadows of horses pounding in our midst. I saw flashes of steel dart out, eliciting more screams. There were men, large men, clothed in metal armor. They carried torches, tossing them up onto the thatched roofs of homes, which immediately burst into flame. Breaking, crashing, sobbing.

The Rominey had come.

A horse thundered past me, throwing me to the ground. I felt slickness against my fingertips, the ground already wet with blood. The panic finally penetrated my cold shell of shock, and I stumbled forward. The shadow and colors were flying back and forth, blood raining down, fire burning brighter. I dove into one of the only homes that had yet to catch flame.

It was in ruins. The narrow bedframes were broken and overturned, blankets spread about, and ashes from the firepit scattered. I huddled against the stone wall, feeling the cold brick against my back but seeing red behind my eyelids. Adrenaline and fear pounded through my veins. _Alone, alone, alone. _Where was papa? My breath came faster and harder. On the other side of the wall, a ragged scream choked off abruptly.

Almost afraid of what I would see, I turned up a corner of the entrance quilt and peered through the small gap.

The calm night had turned to a living hell. Already, I could see bodies lying motionless on the ground. I could not force myself to scan them for familiarity. Heart pounding, I crawled forward a few inches, until suddenly a body fell forward into my line of vision with a loud _thud_. I screamed at the glittering blood covering the young man's face. His expression was frozen in pain and horror, which seemed to seep from his body to mine, steeling me in place.

And then a rough hand, breaking me from my cocoon of fear, fisted around my hair and yanked me up from the ground. The chaos and destruction around me blurred and shrank into the distance. I felt air against my back, and then slammed against a hard surface. I was trapped, trapped by a face that rose up before me, the only clear thing.

Another scream burst from my throat. I was screeching, flailing, kicking, twisting and struggling against the hands that shoved me back into the wall. There was the flash of a knife, reflected in the man's eyes as he moved to kill me. I was going to die, against a crumbling stone wall, surrounded by the hideous sounds of murder and destruction.

My eyes flew open wide, and I grabbed his wrist, trying to stop the rapid advancement of the knife. _Atcha_, I screamed, _atcha!_ Please, please.

Something indeterminate, something other than the feeble grasp of my fingers, stayed his hand. The knife wavered over my head, as the attacker's eyes opened as wide as mine. For several seconds we hung in suspended animation like that. And then a choked cry broke me out.

"Krsta!" the voice so familiar, so pained, managed to cut through the burning and crashing, straight to my ears.

He was on the ground, blood trickling down from a gash in his forehead and gathering in his beard. Through the haze of horror, I realized that he must have broken his leg. He crawled forward and stretched out an arm in my direction, still so far away. "Krsta, _ishen_!" Run.

It happened so quickly. A ghastly skull seemed to emerge from the darkness behind him. A hideous, deathly thing of pure white bone. A body materialized below it. My father, his eyes trained on me, begging me to escape, didn't see the blade that rose over his head. As he called out my name one last time the sword dove into his back and burst out of his chest in a shower of red. He burst violently, and his eyes rolled back. It was over in seconds.

I was ripped apart, torn from the inside, killed on the spot. All that was left of me was a piercing scream. My legs gave out, and I dove down into myself – broken as I was – wanting to die. Blackness flashed before my eyes, and the only thing that kept me in place was a horrid death's head that peered down emotionlessly as my father, my papa, bled out all over the ground.

The merciless hand yanked me again by my hair and dragged, startling me mid-scream. The kicking and sobbing that erupted from me was purely reactionary. Any sense of self-preservation had been extinguished by my father's blood. I wasn't thinking about living. I wasn't thinking about dying, either. I wasn't thinking at all. I was shrieking.

He didn't kill me. Not immediately, at least. Pebbles, roots and chunks of hard-packed dirt dug into my back as he dragged me further and further from the burning village. Colder and colder and colder the air became against my skin. I wept and clawed at the ground, no longer human.

A large, dappled gray horse that I hadn't seen before was following us silently through the forest, obedient to its master. The crazy thought entered my mind that if I could just break free, I could leap on the horse and escape. Just at that moment, the pressure that seemed to pull my hair out by the roots disappeared. My head _thumped _painfully against the ground.

My shadowy attacker stood above me and pointed down imperiously. "Stay here, and be silent," he ordered in strange words I didn't understand.

I scrambled to my feet and tried to run. The man caught me in two steps, throwing an arm around my stomach. He dragged me back to the horse and deposited me at the base of a tree. Again, I attempted to regain my feet, but he just shoved me back against the trunk and hissed more words at me.

He turned and reached for the horse, delving into a leather saddle bag and withdrawing a long length of rope. I screamed when I saw it, thinking only that he meant to hang me. Instead, he forced me back against the trunk and threw the rope over my shoulder, wrapping it around me one, twice, three times. I whimpered and wrestled against him, but I was tired and weak and in pain. It was becoming clear that he had no intention of killing me in the near future, and being unsure of his intentions was almost more frightening. As he tied the knot tightly, I began to scream, hoarsely and frantically.

"Be _silent_," the man snapped. He came around to face me and gripped my chin harshly. "Do you wish for them to find you?" I was so confused, and his foreign words were no help.

He huffed in frustration, and then leaned down and ripped a strip of cloth off of my nightdress. Before I knew what he was doing, he shoved the cloth in my mouth and reached around to tie it behind my head. I was now completely at his mercy.

The man said nothing more. He did nothing. He stared at me for a long moment, then took the reins of his horse and walked away. I kicked and struggled against the bonds, but they were like constricting snakes wrapped around my chest. The tips of my fingers began to go numb. I wept.

The night was not silent. The sky was tinged gray and red from the smoke. I could still hear screams and moans of pain. Hadn't there been enough screaming tonight? I never wanted to hear it again. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep, and wake up in peace.

But there would be no peace tonight. I shuddered in the cold night as the sounds of death echoed through the forest.

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><p><strong>Confused? I wouldn't be surprised.<strong>

**While this story is a complete work of fiction, it is based off of the vague history of the Germanic peoples in Europe around 300-600 AD. They were a large group of various tribes whose descendants eventually became the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, and other European groups. The Romans knew them as barbarians. Some of the more western tribes eventually adopted latin and became Christianized. **

**Not much is known about the Germanic tribes, but the fictional tribes in this story are based off of these few facts about them:**

**1. They were very warlike, and would sometimes wipe out smaller tribes in massive raids, killing men, women, and children**

**2. They were highly superstitious. Some worshipped pagan gods.**

**3. They had a very organized system of leadership that was based on rank in their army**

**I know this is a strange precedent for a Phantom story. I can't really say where it came from. But trust me on this one. It's been boiling in my head for a long time, and I trust it'll be very interesting and original. I will do my best to stay true to the original characters as well. **

**As for A Little Incentive, my other story (which I've left hanging since December) I fully intend to get a jump on that again once I'm out of school. For anyone who has been reading that, I'm sorry for the long wait. Fortunately, I've just finished my hardest year of high school, and am looking forward to a fairly easy senior year. **

**Thank you for reading. Please leave a review to let me know what you think.**

**The Queen's Reprise**


	2. Scene II

**Thank you so much for the response to the first chapter! I apologize for not replying to reviews – I don't generally reply, but I read and appreciate each one. **

**I want to clarify one thing, because apparently there was a bit of confusion about this in the first chapter – the man in the white mask who killed Christine's father, and the man who dragged her off into the forest were **_**two different people.**_

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><p><strong>Scene II<strong>

_**Raoul**_

In the dead of night the destroyed village quieted to an eerie field of ghosts. I stepped carefully, trying not to see the eyes of our victims, but it was difficult when they seemed to glow in the darkness. The stench of charred flesh was strong. Astrid followed behind me, snorting and pawing nervously at the ground.

For a moment, I just stood and stared at the carnage. I had done this. Not singlehandedly, and not willingly, but still. I was a good soldier. I followed orders. Before, it had always been rival armies. Men who would just as soon kill me as I them.

I stared at the body of a pregnant woman whose skull had been split open, and felt bile rise in my throat. The general had told us it was our duty to wipe out the inferiors, the ones who had wronged us in the past. And I always followed orders.

A small flock of crows descended on the village, already gathering for their feast. I shuddered and nudged Astrid into the forest.

It took awhile to find the girl. I hadn't wanted to mark her position in any noticeable way, in case one of the others came by. I wove vaguely through the trees until I stumbled upon her prone form. She had slumped over as if in death, and I might have worried that one of the other soldiers had gotten to her, if not for the little puffs of breath that hovered in the night air.

Little mystery. I had almost killed her. I sighed and trudged over to the tree she was bound to, lifting her chin with my hand. Her eyes fluttered, but didn't open, so I peeled back one of her eyelids with my thumb, and lifted the lantern.

Startling blue. Impossible, but there it was. There was no way I could harm her now. The girl stared ahead, seeing nothing.

With another sigh, I reached back and pulled the grimy cloth from her mouth. It took a bit longer to untangle the knots that held the rope in place. When it fell away, the girl collapsed to the ground, where she lay, groaning weakly. There were red marks on her arms where the rope had rubbed against them. I might have felt bad about that, but I didn't. If not for me, she would have been dead.

The forest was silent. I stared at the girl, wondering if she would move or try to escape, but she remained completely motionless. An owl hooted in the branches above us. "Well, then," I muttered after a moment. "Let's be on our way."

I lifted her up and draped her prone form over Astrid's back. The mare snorted and tossed her head, trying to understand the unfamiliar addition of weight as I swung my leg up on the side.

It was a good feeling to be moving back towards the camp. Perhaps it was childish of me, but I had never been fond of the night. I tried not to imagine the ghosts of our victims drifting through the trees, clutching their heads and moaning in torment. I whispered a quick prayer to Varana for safety, and focused ahead, relieved when the forest gave way to open fields. About a mile later, our camp came into view. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, and the faint outlines of a hundred or so tents were visible.

Eagerly I rode forward, knowing that we would be on the move soon and that if I arrived quickly, I might get a few short minutes of sleep.

No one noticed my quiet return to camp. Astrid lowered her head and made a sound that was eerily similar to a human sigh – she seemed to feel as relieved as I was to be far away from the burning embers of our victims. "No trouble now," I whispered in her ear as I tied her reins to a wooden stake mounted in the ground beside my tent. Astrid hardly spared me a glance as she set about grazing on the grass and weeds around her feet.

As soon as I had secured her, the opening flap of the next tent slid aside, and a young man appeared, stifling a yawn behind his thick fingers. He took note of the fact that I was fully dressed, my hair stirred about by the wind, and his lips curled back in a teasing grin. "Where have you been at this early hour?" He wondered aloud.

"Out." I was standing with my back to him, so that the girl was hidden from his line of sight. It was with reluctance that I reached up and pulled her from Astrid's back.

"Wanderlust grabbed you? Or are you simply too much of a coward to piss in the presence of other men?" He laughed at his own jab.

I didn't answer. Dawn was already announcing its young arrival to the sky, and I could hear other voices beginning to take up a quiet murmur. Exhaustion was beginning to weigh down on me, and I was not in a mood for jokes. Tiredly, I trudged over to the front of my own tent and laid her down before it.

I heard another taunt die in my companion's mouth. When I turned, his eyes were fixed on the girl. "That is not allowed," he whispered.

I groaned and knelt to the ground, rubbing my eyes. "I'm well aware of what is and isn't allowed, Daevid," I muttered. I was not in the mood for explanations right now, and anyways, with the girl's eyes closed he probably would not believe me.

Daevid gave me a long, searching look, trying to understand what would compel a straight-laced soldier to drag a dirt-covered foreigner back to camp with him. He dropped his shoulders, and the teasing glint leaked out of his eyes. "Would you like me to kill it for you?" he offered, drawing a small dagger out of his belt. The compassion in his tone might have been touching, if it didn't come with murderous intent.

I quelled that thought. After all, I was no different. "No, I don't want you to kill her – it."

"Erik will be displeased."

"That is between Erik and myself, isn't it?" I responded a bit gruffly. I had known, when I chose to let the girl live, that I would have to defend my choice against others who would certainly be angered. There were virtually no rules during an attack. The foreigners were below us, made up of unworthy bone and blood, not even worthy of being called human. It was generally understood that one could do whatever one wanted to them – including the young women – while the blood and swords were still flying. But at the end of the day, they were to be left dead. To bring one back with me was to defile our people with the foreigner's undesirable presence.

At one point soon, I would have to explain myself. At the moment I was too tired.

"Make something to eat," I grumbled at Daevid, and then ducked into my tent, dragging the still-unconscious girl with me.

Some time later, I cracked my eyes open, stretched, and crawled back into the daylight. The sun had risen higher, but the edges of the sky were still pink. A small group of soldiers was clustered around the fire, breakfasting on an unsavory mixture of bacon and cornmeal. I accepted a plate from the soldier next to me and squatted down, spooning it quickly into my mouth.

Phillipe made his way over to me after a few minutes. As a brother who'd played a fatherly role in my life for many years, he still struggled to leave me on my own, no matter how independent I had become. He merely wanted to see me succeed, and my affection for him as a brother kept me from being bothered by his constant presence.

"I found a mare yesterday during the raid," he told me, easing slowly down onto his knees.

"Did you now?"

"She had a colt with her." He paused to chew through a spoonful of cornmeal before continuing. "He's a beauty. Smooth, dark coat, strong legs…I'm lucky I saw him before anyone else did."

Many of the soldiers liked to save the livestock for home. Even now, I could hear the confused baying of goats and sheep rising from the makeshift paddock in the center of camp.

"Raoul…" Phillipe paused and seemed to choke something back. "Is it true, what Daevid told me?"

I shoved another spoonful of cornmeal into my mouth and chewed more vigorously than before.

"Tell me you didn't bring one of _them _back alive." A sneer overcame Phillipe's mouth and twisted his next words. "So help me, Raoul, if you risk our family honor for a little plaything –"

"It's different," I spat, hurt by his insinuation. "She's like us. She's Romin, at least partially."

Phillipe snorted. "Impossible."

I set my plate down on the ground and turned to him. "Look at me, brother," I hissed lowly, so that my words would not be overheard by the obviously eavesdropping soldiers around us. "I know what I saw. Of course I would never risk my place in the army for a little foreign child. But if she _is _Romin –"

"You're mistaken," Phillipe snapped, cutting me off.

I had no opportunity to argue, for at that moment the front flap of my tent was thrown back, and there stood the girl, shaking and wide-eyed. Every single pair of eyes in the immediate vicinity locked on her in the same moment. For a moment, no one spoke, moved, or even breathed.

Then the girl sucked in a fearful, choked breath. I was on my feet as soon as I saw her legs bend in preparation to flee. She stumbled out of our little circle of tents and took off running. I groaned and muttered a low oath that was fairly uncharacteristic of me before giving chase.

She was faster than I would have thought, given her haggard appearance, and a small section of my mind was impressed as it watched her vault over a crate and dart between two tents. But that tiny voice was drowned out by the need to catch and _quiet _her, for she was raising quite a bit of commotion and swiftly drawing attention.

It was not altogether difficult. I was weary, but strong and well-trained, whereas she was exhausted, starving, and weak. She tripped over a thick clod of dirt and went sprawling, and I quickly threw an arm around her waist, muttering a quick apology to the soldiers that were looking on in confusion.

Still, the girl resisted. She began kicking and scratching at my arms, all the while screaming to raise hell. The few men who had still been asleep were poking their heads out of the tents, searching for the disruption. I winced and clapped a hand over her mouth, only to yank it back a moment later as she bit down, _hard. _

"You little _animal_," I hissed, wishing for a moment that I had just left her to die.

The screaming continued until I thought my eardrums would burst. Finally, I reached my tent and let her fall to the ground. The girl backed away from me on hands and knees.

"If you know what is good for you, you will stay there and _not move_ until I tell you to," I told her, doubtful that she would understand. Confusion overshadowed the fear in her blue eyes.

But a moment later, that became the least of my problems, as I heard a chilling voice speak up from behind me.

"What is _this_?" Erik demanded coldly. I turned slowly, and was met with the horrible sight of the bone mask, through which his two eyes burned furiously. But those eyes were not fixed on me. Instead, they peered, unforgiving, at the girl. She shrieked and curled up into a ball under his gaze.

Erik took an aggressive step toward her and pulled his bloodstained sword from his belt.

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><p><strong>Yes, I <strong>_**am **_**indeed cutting it off there. **

**No, I did not plan on waiting this long to update, and I do not plan on doing so again…however, I'm going into my senior year of high school and things are getting very busy very fast, so I can't say for sure.**

**On a side note, I just saw the final Harry Potter movie yesterday morning…and cried. I'm in that happy-that-it's-a-satisfying-ending-but-sad-that-it's-over stage. If anyone wants to geek out about Harry Potter with me, I'm open. **

**The Queen's Reprise**


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